Battle of Waterloo

The Battle of Waterloo (18 June 1815) was a decisive battle fought between the armies of Emperor Napoleon I's First French Empire and an Allied army of British, Dutch, and German troops under the Duke of Wellington and Gebhard von Blucher. The battle saw Napoleon's army of 73,000 troops launch a series of failed attacks against the 68,000-strong Anglo-Dutch-German army on the Mont-Saint-Jean escarpment, leading to both sides suffering heavy losses, before an army of 50,000 Prussian troops arrived to reinforce the British, assaulting the vulnerable French rear. The British and their German jaegers held off a French attack on the Allied right flank at Hougoumont as the British also held the La Haye-Sainte chateau in the center and Papellotte on the left, and the French exhausted much of their manpower in attempts to take these strongholds. Napoleon made the mistake of dividing his army, as he had sent a third of his force under Emmanuel de Grouchy to attack a Prussian army at Wavre, keeping 33,000 French troops from fighting at Waterloo. Napoleon committed his last reserves to a final attack on the Allied army in the evening, and the assault was narrowly beaten back as Prussians broke through on the French right flank. The British counterattacked against the French center as the Prussians assaulted the French right, and the French army was routed. Just four days later, an uninspired Napoleon abdicated as Emperor for a second time, and Allied forces entered Paris on 7 July 1815, restoring King Louis XVIII of France to the throne. Waterloo cost the French 41,000 men and the Allies 24,000 troops, and it has since become one of the most important battles in history. Waterloo was Napoleon's last battle, and it put an end to his French empire, ending the Napoleonic Wars and ushering in a new era of relative peace on the European continent.